Exhibit A: The Non-Secure BlackBerry

Hillary Clinton used a BlackBerry to send and receive classified emails during her time as Secretary of State, even though her device was so non-secure that she wasn’t even allowed to use it in her “Mahogany Row” offices on the seventh floor of the State Department.

“[The State Department] does not believe that any personal computing device was issued by the Department to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and has not located any such device at the Department…

…Because the devices issued to Ms. Mills and Ms. Abedin would have been outdated models, in accordance with standard operating procedures those devices would have been destroyed or excessed.”

Now here’s where the BlackBerry issue really becomes important. Clinton was warned in 2009 to stop using her BlackBerry because her device suffered a security “vulnerability” when she visited East Asian countries, including China, on her first official State Department trip.

On March 11, 2009, a State Department official, whose name is redacted, sent an email to another State Department official, whose name is redacted. That email, obtained in a lawsuit by Judicial Watch, might be the smoking gun in the Hillary Clinton email case – at least as it pertains to Clinton possibly losing information due to “gross negligence.”

According to the official, Hillary Clinton approached Ambassador Boswell and asked him about BlackBerry use. Specifically, Clinton asked about the fact that the Department had “intelligence concerning the vulnerability during her recent trip to Asia.”

After this mornings “management meeting” with the A/Secys, Secretary Clinton approached Ambassador Boswell and mentioned that she had read the IM and that she “gets it.” Her attention was drawn to the sentence that indicates we (DS) have intelligence concerning this vulnerability during her recent trip to Asia.

Secretary Clinton has asked Ambassador Boswell for this information. Please prepare a short informal paper OR provide the A/Secy with a briefing on this matter. Your assistance is appreciated. The Secretary did not provide a “due date”…BUT the Ambassador would like to close this loop as soon as possible.

But Clinton continued to use her BlackBerry as late as 2011, two years after this warning, according to former State Department official Wendy Sherman. Sherman spoke Clinton’s BlackBerry use in a speech that was quietly recorded on video and released right before the Iowa caucus, which Clinton barely won over Bernie Sanders.